


Surprise, surprise

by dirtbagtrashcat



Series: The Lies We Tell [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Lies to Everyone but Especially to Himself, Akechi's such a bastard, Denial, Detective Prince Akechi Goro, Jealousy, M/M, Mind Games, Power Dynamics, Rationalizing Away Your Emotions, The masks Akechi wears, and one “spoiler” about Kasumi’s backstory that I’ve guessed/deduced but not confirmed, but that's why we love him, please don’t tell me if I’m right, spoilers through May
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23672281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtbagtrashcat/pseuds/dirtbagtrashcat
Summary: Akechi tries and fails to play mind games with Akira over the course of several surprise encounters."Akechi has come to expect his little “surprise encounters” with Akira.The first few times, he actually lets it surprise him. He doesn't show it, of course. What is he, an amateur? Still, Tokyo is a big city. The odds of bumping into a familiar face even once are astronomical. But three times? Six? At a certain point, one finds oneself drawn toward vague, asinine aphorisms about fate, or magnetism, or destinies written in the stars. (“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Akira told him last time they met, utterly solemn save for a funny twinkle in his eye, and Akechi had no way to know if he was joking or deadly serious. Knowing Akira, it may well have been both at once.)But that’s the draw, isn’t it? Before he met Akira, Akechi never once encountered someone who he couldn’t read. People are all so tediously predictable, with their dreadful little values (which crumble at the slightest pressure), and their vices (stemmed so transparently from their petty traumas), and all the lies they tell themselves. Akechi lies to everyone, but at least he never lies to himself."
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: The Lies We Tell [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703317
Comments: 14
Kudos: 296





	Surprise, surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler warning for Vanilla P5 and for Royal through May! There's also one "spoiler" about Kasumi's backstory that I've deduced/assumed from context but not yet confirmed in the narrative. (Please don't tell me if I'm right! I'm only at Sae's dungeon in my playthrough).

Akechi has come to expect his little “surprise encounters” with Akira. 

The first few times, he actually lets it surprise him. He doesn’t  _ show _ it, of course. What is he, an amateur? Still, Tokyo is a big city. The odds of bumping into a familiar face even  _ once _ are astronomical. But three times?  _ Six _ ? At a certain point, one finds oneself drawn toward vague, asinine aphorisms about fate, or magnetism, or destinies written in the stars. (“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Akira told him last time they met, utterly solemn save for a funny twinkle in his eye, and Akechi had no way to know if he were joking or deadly serious. Knowing Akira, it may well have been both at once.)

But that’s the draw, isn’t it? Before he met Akira, Akechi never once encountered someone who he couldn’t read. People are all so tediously predictable, with their dreadful little values (which crumble at the slightest pressure), and their vices (stemmed so transparently from their petty traumas), and all the lies they tell themselves. Akechi lies to everyone, but at least  _ he _ never lies to himself.

When they first met, Akechi was… not drawn to Akira, exactly, but  _ disarmed _ , maybe, by his honesty -- his honest hostility, really. People weren’t hostile toward Akechi very often. Not people who intended to live particularly long lives, anyway. Yet this strange, unassuming boy had come straight at him --  _ on camera _ , no less -- and seemed not daunted in the least when Akechi cornered him on-set later that same day. Really, he’d only asked for Akira’s contact info to satisfy his curiosity, and maybe to get one last hit of the boy’s inexplicable rudeness. He’d never expected him to say  _ yes _ . 

Akechi doesn’t talk to people, he handles them. He always knows just what to say to draw them in, or to push them away. With Akira, he’d opted for an old favorite, a mask of cartoonish adulation: eyes wide with intrigue; cheeks flushed; an admiring lilt in his voice. Most people who met this mask reacted with pleasure. They blushed and flapped their hands, tittering coyly in a poor man’s facsimile of modesty. Others (young men, mostly) responded with bristling aggression -- the more “respectable” public face of fear, which all-too-garishly revealed an unexamined ego. 

Akira did neither. 

From the outset, Akechi was at the top of his game: pressing, preening, wheedling, grandstanding about his own intellect one moment and the next, backing off to proffer more unearned praise. 

“I feel that our discussions could prove quite fruitful,” he’d told the other boy admiringly. Should he call him Senpai? No, that was too much. “Would you mind talking to me again?”

He’d laid his trap. Now all he had to do was wait for Akira’s inevitable humiliation. Either Akira would see the trap for what it was and pull away, hackles raised; or he would fall into Akechi’s hands like the gullible sap that he was. Either way, he would lose. 

But instead: “Fine by me,” Akira had said, in a tone that was neither disinterested nor particularly enthusiastic. Akechi stared at him hard. He didn’t seem to be playing hard-to-get, or aping nonchalance in a (doomed) effort to make Akechi feel small. But he didn’t sound particularly flattered, either. As far as Akechi could parse it, to Akira, his proposal had simply sounded  _ fine _ .

"Thank you," Akechi replied after a moment of startlement, falling into autopilot to avoid losing the upper hand; and made some excuses to beat a tactical retreat. 

From then on, that’s how it was with Akira. Akechi learns not to bat an eye at their chance encounters, nor to be taken off guard by how readily the other boy accepted his invitations (his  _ invitations _ ! Goro Akechi making  _ social plans _ , as though he were an ordinary student). Each time, he devises some new gambit -- a cleverly hidden pitfall which will surely, this time, well and truly make a fool of Akira. Each time, Akira neither falls victim nor chides him for his deviousness. Instead, he seems simply to  _ observe _ Akechi’s efforts, without judgment or rancor. 

Akechi always finds himself saying too much, as though Akira’s comfortable silence creates an aural vacuum which draws the words straight from his id, without stopping by his ego. Occasionally, he finds himself speaking sentences which aren’t a trap at all. Still more rarely, he catches himself actually listening to Akira’s responses, as though there were anything that  _ Akira _ could say that would inform  _ Akechi _ . Sometimes he wonders if perhaps Akira is playing a game of his own -- weaving a web nearly as subtle as those that Akechi spins round his prey. But there is one undeniable flaw in this theory. Against all logic, Akira genuinely seems to  _ like _ him.

Which isn’t to say that most people don’t. Anyone would be impressed by any number of Akechi’s masks. But most of the time, Akira seems to look straight  _ through _ Akechi’s mask of the day, as though he could actually  see it. Worse, its presence doesn’t seem to anger him. Akira engages with Akechi’s disguises, and gladly --  _ playfully _ , even, as though Akechi’s duplicitous nature were some fun quirk of personality and not an utterly damning condemnation of character. Akechi doesn’t know what to make of it. He certainly doesn’t like it. 

Still, he knows better than to let Akira take him by surprise. So when he steps out of Shibuya station to find Akira in the Station Square, Akechi doesn’t bat an eye. 

He  _ is _ slightly startled to find that Akira is with a girl. It’s not the usual girl, either -- the flashy, slow-witted blonde that Akira usually carts around with him, along with that similarly vulgar jock sidekick. 

It takes Akechi another moment to realize that he  _ knows _ this girl. It’s Kasumi, the acrobat whose sister he killed. Goodness, but she looks just like her. 

“Ah, Kurusu-kun!” he calls to Akira, smiling. Then he offers Akira’s companion an apologetic glance. “And you are?” he asks her, disarmingly courteous, as though to tell her:  _ I’m terribly polite, but you’re equally forgettable. _

Kasumi doesn’t miss a beat.

“Akechi-san,” she greets him brightly. For only an instant, Akechi’s eyes narrow. He saw recognition in her eyes, but he’d expected her to play at the same game that he had: establishing rank by failing to remember another. “It’s been a while!”

She turns to flash a brilliant smile at him, ducking toward Akira in the process -- pressing herself close against Akira, as though she were a child showing off about the intimacy they share.  _ See?  _ Her actions seemed to say.  _ See how comfortable he is with me? _

Murderous intent flares behind Akechi’s eyes. He wonders idly how it might feel to kill her. Would she stare defiantly past the barrel of his gun, like her sister? Or, hollowed out by loss as she was, would she passively await her death? Some people’s anger is hot, but Akechi’s is always cold. When it rises in him, he feels as though it may freeze his blood to ice. 

“You two seem awfully close,” he says warmly, ignoring the vision of Yoshizawa-san’s pleading, wailing desperation that hovers in his mind’s eye. “I didn’t expect that  _ you _ would be acquainted.” 

“How do you two know each other?” Akira asks, darting a curious look from one to the other. Akechi smiles. He’s in control here. 

“My father works at a TV station,” Kasumi answers cheerily, before Akechi has time to open his mouth. Akechi bites his tongue to keep his pleasant smile from warping into an unseemly snarl. “Have you ever seen Good Morning Japan? My father’s the director.”

“Yes,” Akechi agrees pleasantly. “I’ve been brought onto the show as a guest a number of times now.”  _ I’m more important than you, you simpering child.  _

He makes light conversation for a few minutes more, listening with rising distaste as Yoshizawa natters on about her little competition and the cursory success she’s had there. Akechi can’t fathom what Akira might be getting out of their arrangement. 

A dreadful thought strikes him. Is  _ this _ Akira’s type? Admittedly, the dark-haired boy has a habit of surrounding himself with weaker minds, like that vulgar brute Sakomoto and silly, gaudy Takamaki. Perhaps Akira simply likes to feel superior. But if that’s the case, then why does he spend time with Akechi?

Nothing that Kasumi says is particularly original, nor particularly engaging. So how is it that she’s managed to capture Akira’s rapt attention? Why do his huge, dark eyes remain so stubbornly fixed on her pert, flushed face, without ever darting over to Akechi’s? 

To his distinct humiliation, Akechi finds himself seizing fleeting opportunities to cut in -- asking inane little follow-up questions, or offering hollow words of praise. As if to reward his efforts, Akira’s gaze flickers toward him, unreadable as ever but brightened with distinct notes of humor. Is -- is he  _ laughing _ at him? Akechi goes white with fury. 

"Ah, I have an idea," he says pleasantly. “Since the three of us are all here, why don’t we go somewhere as a group?”

_Why does he even care if Akira has a girlfriend?_ Akechi wonders on his way home, after another infuriating hour of polite conversation. Perhaps he’s simply disappointed to find that so enigmatic a character would stoop to entangle himself with such a simple, silly girl. It reduces Akira, in a way -- makes him look ordinary. 

That’s probably it. Still. For reasons that swim somewhere in the murk of Akechi’s unconscious mind, the Detective Prince finds himself tapping a message into his phone. 

“I’m alone right now,” he writes, and sends it before he can second-guess the impulse. “I could meet you in Kichijoji, if you like.” 

Hardly a moment passes before his phone buzzes. 

“I’ll be right there.” 

The wash of warm assurance that follows is perfectly natural. He’s relieved to know that his grip on Akira is as tight as ever; that his curious little pet is still, first and foremost,  _ his _ . Besides, there’s no time to interrogate the feeling any further. Akechi has a train to catch. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it ends sort of abruptly! I kinda lost steam partway through but figured I may as well post and pick this up another day. 
> 
> As ever, I super appreciate any and all feedback!


End file.
